Illustration of Italian physician Sanctorio Sanctorio (1561-1636) seated in the balance he constructed for quantitative measurement of the human body. A professor of Medicine at the University of Padua, he used it to measure small changes in human body weight on a daily basis. He showed that they lost weight while inactive through "insensible perspiration". This marks the beginning of the study of metabolism. Sanctorius established the use of the clinical thermometer and invented a device to measure the pulse known as a pulsilogium. Image published in 1703.